ented. This was more awful to
me than anything I had seen. "How soon," thought I, "may I be
stretched, mangled and bleeding, on this table, and have occasion for
all the skill and all the instruments I now see before me!" I turned
away, and endeavoured to forget it all.

As soon as the fleet bore up to engage the enemy, we did the same,
keeping as near as we could to the admiral, whose signals we were
ordered to repeat. I was particularly astonished with the skilful
manner in which this was done. It was wonderful to see how
instantaneously the same flags were displayed at our mast-heads as had
been hoisted by the admiral; and the more wonderful this appeared to me,
since his flags were rolled up in round balls, which were not broken
loose until they had reached the mast-head, so that the signal officers
of a repeater had to make out the number of the flag during its passage
aloft in disguise. This was done by the power of good telescopes, and
from habit, and sometimes by anticipation of the signal that would be
next made.

The reader may, perhaps, not be aware that among civilised nations, in
naval warfare, ships of the line never fire at frigates, unless they
provoke hostility by interposing between belligerent ships, or firing
into them, as was the case in the Nile, when Sir James Saumarez, in the
_Orion_, was under the necessity of sinking the _Artemise_, which he did
with one broadside, as a reward for her temerity. Under this _pax in
bellum_ sort of compact we might have come off scot-free, had we not
partaken very liberally of the shot intended for large ships, which did
serious damage among our people.

The two British lines running down parallel to each other, and nearly
perpendicular to the crescent line of the combined fleets, was the
grandest sight that was ever witnessed. As soon as our van was within
gun-shot of the enemy, they opened their fire on the _Royal Sovereign_
and the _Victory_; but when the first-named of these noble ships rounded
to, under the stern of the Santa Anna, and the Victory had very soon
after laid herself on board the Redoubtable, the clouds of smoke
enveloped both fleets, and little was to be seen except the falling of
masts, and here and there, as the smoke blew away, a ship totally
dismasted.

One of these proved to be English, and our captain, seeing her between
two of the enemy, bore up to take her in tow: at the same time, one of
our ships of the line opened a heavy